Senate committee lays out plan for veterans’ centers on college campuses

Texas veterans on the GI Bill may soon have more resources to financial aid and employment options at their fingertips if lawmakers approve a bill that would lay the initial foundation for veterans’ resource centers at colleges across the state.

A bill by Sen. Leticia Van de Putte, D-San Antonio, would allow the Texas Veterans Commission to oversee at least 15 resource centers at universities throughout the state. It requires at least one center in ten regions spelled out in the bill.

The resource centers are meant to be one-stop shops for veterans on campus to get help with college and financial aid applications and job placement.

The Senate Veterans Affairs and Military Installation Committee left the bill pending at a hearing this morning. One change the committee is likely to consider later is defining any legal assistance the veterans may have at the resource centers.

“There was no one on campus to help me because it was the dean, ten days after I meet with him for redress, who got a group of six actors together to impede my PhD pursuit,” said Zenobia Joseph, a former UT student and veteran. “I’m asking you to consider that veterans need centers, that’s true, but please consider having at least legal counsel.”

Van de Putte said Texas does a miserable job at placing veterans in the state’s colleges, instead steering them toward the workforce. She attributes the trend to a lack of pre-enrollment and financial aid advising as well as inadequate campus support on some campus.

“Our systems are not set up to capture and help them maximize their benefits,” she said.

Veterans also face deployments and return dates that do not match with college semesters, which breeds economic uncertainty for the veteran during the lapse, Van de Putte said.

“We have to get this population engaged, active, productive because we know what happened to prior generations of veterans when they were treated badly, when they didn’t get help,” she said. “We see them. They’re living under the bridge.”

Under the bill, the colleges will take on most of the costs of veterans’ centers. The bill requires the college provide the resource center with space on campus, Internet access and other office equipment.

The state’s public colleges are bracing for potentially deep cuts to the parts of their budgets that come from the state’s general revenue fund. But Van de Putte said investing in the resource centers for veterans will boost enrollment and tuition revenue at state colleges.

“There are a lot of extra costs,” she said. “But we’ve already had much interest from institutions of higher learning. They are our real strength here.”

State Rep. Roberto Alonzo, D-Dallas, filed a companion bill in the House.